Program Analysis & Development

Primary Takeaways for the Week

• The ideas and concepts of the capstone project are becoming very real now. Breaking down the qualitative and quantitative information really brought to light the amount of pieces needed for each piece of the puzzle. Most surprising was easily the Library. I knew it would be the largest portion of my space, but not to this extent. I have a little bit of reworking to do in order to fit the activities I want in my spaces.

Process

• The program analysis began with a breakdown of all the activities within each space. From this point we described qualitative characteristics, such as noise, lighting, privacy etc., and listed off as much quantitative information as possible.

• From this information gathered, we then created a criteria and adjacency matrix and began developing a relationship diagram for each usage. Combined, all these elements prepared us for the next step of prototypicals and block diagrams.

• Prototypicals will forever be the step in the design process that are the most tedious but in the end the most helpful. After creating these elements I was pleased to see that I was mostly on track for square footage allocations. I underestimated a little for the library initially, but with flow over from the office area, I was able to accommodate both sides.

• Creating the block diagrams was an interesting task, I realized vertical circulation would not be an easy and I have some reworking to do on the arrangement of spaces.

Interesting Findings

• Office

• ​The workspaces did not require as much square footage as I anticipated. An open concept saves quite a bit of space.

• Cafeteria

• ​The difficult part of estimating square footage for the kitchen is the arrangement of spaces. The most efficient arrangement of the kitchen by square footage does not always mean the most efficient arrangement for working.

• Library​

• ​With so many pieces to the library, the arrangement of blocks took some time to complete. The crucial part now is to rearrange the space in order to add a central grand staircase.

The block diagrams were created for minimal square footage for the pieces of furniture and circulation to use the furniture and equipment.